[Harp-L] She caught the Katy

[Joseph Leone]

I keep trying to slip away but YOU GUYS keep dragging me back.
Last couple days have been researching this ‘Katy' thing and it occurred to me that I had never really thought of Texas when I thought blues. And Kansas? never happen. I always thought
of Kansas with all the great saxophone players who used to gather in Kansas City in the 30s. But they played jazz. Missouri? yeah I guess because of St. Louis. 

I wondered why the composer picked that particular train. I would have thought that “She” would more likely jumped on a train on the east side of the Mississippi. On her way to…maybe Chicago.
 Like isn’t La., Miss., Tenn., a bit more blues oriented and a focus of lots of blues stories? Then it hit me like the proverbial Led Zeppelin. I tried several OTHER railroads and none of them fit the song. 
On top of that, guess what? The Katy DID end up in Chicago. If you had a mind to go there. Wow, mystery solved. 

Smo-Joe  (p.s. Hey Madcat..I think I was wrong. That locomotive looks more like a 2-6-0 ‘mogul’ class. Probably made by Baldwin. Twin double expansion cylinders, 1500 h.p.)